Chemical synthesis
In chemistry, chemical synthesis (chemical combination) is the artificial execution of chemical reactions to obtain one or several products.[1] This occurs by physical and chemical manipulations usually involving one or more reactions. In modern laboratory uses, the process is reproducible and reliable.
A chemical synthesis involves one or more compounds (known as reagents or reactants) that will experience a transformation when subjected to certain conditions. Various reaction types can be applied to formulate a desired product. This requires mixing the compounds in a reaction vessel, such as a chemical reactor or a simple round-bottom flask. Many reactions require some form of processing ("work-up") or purification procedure to isolate the final product.[1]
The amount produced by chemical synthesis is known as the reaction yield. Typically, yields are expressed as a mass in grams (in a laboratory setting) or as a percentage of the total theoretical quantity that could be produced based on the limiting reagent. A side reaction is an unwanted chemical reaction occurring which reduces the desired yield. The word synthesis was used first in a chemical context by the chemist Hermann Kolbe.[2]
Strategies[edit]
Many strategies exist in chemical synthesis that are more complicated than simply converting a reactant A to a reaction product B directly. For multistep synthesis, a chemical compound is synthesized by a series of individual chemical reactions, each with its own work-up.[3] For example, a laboratory synthesis of paracetamol can consist of three sequential parts. For cascade reactions, multiple chemical transformations occur within a single reactant, for multi-component reactions as many as 11 different reactants form a single reaction product and for a "telescopic synthesis" one reactant experiences multiple transformations without isolation of intermediates.